A business software application (BSA, also referred to in this disclosure as a business application) generally includes software or a set of computer programs usable by business users to perform various business functions to perform operations relating to increasing productivity, measuring productivity, improving the accuracy of business function performance, and the like. In some examples, one or more business software applications can be included as part of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) framework, a customer relationship management (CRM) framework, a sales automation framework, or other business software framework.
Development of a business software application can typically occur via an iterative process. For example, the process can typically include writing of code, compiling the newly written code (optionally in conjunction with previously written code), deploying the code, and running the business software application. To test a feature added by the newly written code, it is typically necessary for a development team member (e.g. the developer himself or herself or a software tester) to execute some number of navigation steps within the running business software application to reach a part of the task flow or other operation of the business application at which the feature can be tested. If testing of the newly added feature in this manner indicates that further changes are required, currently available approaches generally require repetition of the writing, compiling, and deploying of another iteration of newly written code followed by repetition of the execution of the navigations steps to reach the part of the task flow or other operation of the business application at which the feature can be tested again. Such an approach can be time consuming, costly, inefficient, etc. for a development team.
In addition to software products produced by development teams for shipment, sale, etc. to end user customers, increasing numbers of business software applications include scripting capabilities that allow key users, script programmers, etc. at a business application customer organization to create customized functionality. For example, software packages exist that allow customers of a business software framework (e.g., an ERP framework, a CRM framework, a sales automation framework, etc.) to build customized applications, such as for example business intelligence web applications and the like. Scripting of such applications can also include a potentially frustrating cycle of coding, compiling, deploying, and testing.